A year ago, the city was looking down the barrel of $250 million in costs to improve the roadways and other infrastructure to support a new downtown Spurs arena.
Now it appears that line item has been cut to only $35 million.
The new estimate comes as San Antonio proposes a five-year bond program coming in at $442 million in 2027, about a third of the size of the $1.2 billion bond that was passed in 2022.
Director of Capital Improvements Mike Shannon said during a bond kickoff briefing to City Council that his department has identified $5.8 billion in potential projects for capital improvement citywide.
Requests from city council members, staff, partner agencies, the public and city boards are among the projects that must be prioritized ahead of making it on the list of bond projects presented to voters next year.
Meanwhile, the city must also meet its long-term commitment to the Spurs as it faces a major budget deficit and a struggling economy.
Cutting the cost for infrastructure around the planned sports and entertainment district known as Project Marvel could be possible, Shannon said, if the state picks up the tab for a greater share of the overall $175 million cost for those projects.
City staff has spent the past year talking with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and consultants about what’s feasible when it comes to projects related to the new Spurs arena, convention center renovations and related development, Shannon said.
Several items initially proposed in the early days of the Project Marvel roll-out are now off the table, reducing the quarter-billion-dollar total price tag by 14%.
“For example, $85 million of that original number was a parking garage and a direct connection to the highway,” Shannon said. “That is not proposed and not being considered now.”
Instead, plans call for encouraging downtown visitors to use alternate modes of transportation.
“I think a lot of what we’re learning [from] VIA and some of our community partners and our mobility specialists is not just creating additional parking downtown but changing the behavior for not only the day-to-day but for the events,” he said.
Another proposal the city has dropped called for converting the interchange at Interstate 37 and Durango Boulevard into a single-point urban interchange, or SPUI, which could move cars through in less time than a traditional intersection.
TxDOT deemed that project not feasible because the highway would need to be widened, Shannon said, adding a different design shaves $16 million to $18 million from the first estimates.
A project also originally under consideration for the district involved improvements to Durango Boulevard, similar to the changes completed this year on South Alamo Street. Nixing that work saves another $25 million, he said.
“I offer those as some of the examples of what we have done over the past year to reduce … not only the cost but be more in line with our actual need with the sports and entertainment district,” he said. “Several of those projects are needed today in terms of those movements in and around the highways during event days.”
For the projects that remain, the city is assuming TxDOT will pick up 80% of the cost and the city will kick in 20% through the bond.
Those projects include extending Nueva Street through Hemisfair Boulevard, improving Durango Boulevard from I-37 to Alamo Street, and improving the sidewalks in the district for better pedestrian and bike mobility.
The extreme makeover pitched by the city and the Spurs organization for the southeastern quadrant of downtown has shrunk considerably since first made public with its glamorous renderings in November 2024.
By June, the city had joined the San Antonio Water System in deciding not to build a new convention center hotel after projected costs to move a chiller plant climbed to $300 million.
But Project Marvel’s first trimming came in late 2025 when city leaders said a lack of federal support under the Trump administration meant a proposed land bridge over I-37 was being scrapped.
Since then, the city has been spending the roughly $3 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant it was awarded to look at all types of connectivity and pedestrian access across I-37.
Results from the study by consulting firm AECOM are expected in January.
Senior government and politics reporter Andrea Drusch contributed to this report.
